Please explain this line from Lou Dobb's recent column...

"Real median earnings of full-time working males fell nearly 2 percent
last year, according to the Census Bureau, while the real wages of
working women fell by 1.3 percent. Despite that, real median household
income did manage to rise slightly last year, though that small gain
was the first increase in household income since 1999."

On one hand he says that median earnings fell between 1.3%-2.0% (for
all males and females, married and unmarried) for last year, but at the
same time, he says that real median household income managed to rise
last year. This implies to me that on the average, all men/women
(married/unmarried) earned about 1.65% less than last year (since this
is midway between 1.3%-2.0%), but *households* (i.e. married couples)
earned slightly more, and that households are a subsect of "all males
and females, married and unmarried." NOTE: This is just my
interpretation of the data.

I thought that earnings and income mean the same thing. After all,
they mean the exact same thing in financial statements.

More of his article can be found at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/03/Dobbs.Oct4/index.html

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